WEBVTT - Part Two: Christmas Hero Episode: Aaron Swartz 0:00:02.160 --> 0:00:05.640 Zone Media. Hey everybody, Robert here, it's the Christmas two 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.080 parter and every year we try to use our holiday 0:00:08.200 --> 0:00:11.520 episodes to do something good. This year, we're asking you 0:00:11.560 --> 0:00:14.640 to support the mutual aid project that James Stout over 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:16.520 at It Could Happen Here, has been a part of 0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:19.119 for nearly six months in a remote part of the 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:24.040 US Mexico border near Yacoomba, California. While you're hopefully warm 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:27.160 and dry, the border patrol is detaining thousands of migrants, 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:30.400 including children and the elderly, in the desert without food, water, 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:35.160 or shelter when overnight temperatures drop below freezing. Volunteers provide 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:38.440 hot meals, blankets and toys for children. They build shelters 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:41.199 even though the Border patrol destroys them, and keep rebuilding 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:43.240 them so that people have a place to sleep out 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:46.800 in the freezing wind. Everyone there, including James, has spent 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:49.000 a lot of their own money supporting this effort, and 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:51.640 you can hear more about the efforts of volunteers over 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:54.480 on It Could Happen Here. But your support would mean 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:56.680 the world to James and the other people trying to 0:00:56.720 --> 0:00:59.200 help migrants over at the border, and of course those 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:03.440 migrants themselves. You can donate to this effort at go fundme. 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:07.520 If you just type Yakumba j A c U m 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:12.040 b A Migrant Camps, go fund me, Yakumba Migrant Camps, 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:15.319 go fund me, you'll get it. Or you can use 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:19.920 the link TinyURL dot com slash border a GFM that'll 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:25.440 take you right to the fundraiser. So thank you. Welcome 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:33.120 back to Behind the Bastards, Welcome Radio Voice Super Slam Edition. 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:34.720 Yeah, why are you doing this? 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:39.880 Welcome back? What is the Holidays in the Morning podcast? Yeah? 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:41.040 With Robert Evans. 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:46.520 Morning Zoo with Robert Evans and Sophie Lichterman and Margaret Killjoy. 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:49.920 We're the Opie and Anthony of not having one of 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:56.440 our people clearly be a sex pest. Wow, what an introduction. 0:01:56.600 --> 0:01:58.640 I think you say you might have saved the best 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:00.320 one for the end of the year. Great job, Robert. 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:02.560 I went into it. I actually like op and I 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:04.280 remember them from when I was like I can't write 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:06.520 there were they were big, and I had been aware 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:07.840 of a few of their sketches. I was never a 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:10.480 regular listener, so I just you know, I was aware 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:12.000 there were things. Was like, I wonder what happened to them. 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:13.240 It feels like they should be a big thing in 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:15.560 podcasts given where they were. I read up and I 0:02:15.600 --> 0:02:19.360 was like, oh, that's what happened to them. Oh my 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:25.680 As an end of the video treat job Robert, Yes, 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:28.280 it wasn't. I wasn't surprised. It wasn't like one of 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:30.600 those things that you hear and you're like, oh my god, 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:34.720 how could that have been? Going like, yeah, that completely scance. 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:38.160 Yeah, when are we surprised by when people who have 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:39.680 too much power abuse that power? 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:45.440 Yeah, well, particularly men in media, men in comedy, right, yeah, where. 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:49.440 It's like, yeah, very close, men in bands, it's it's 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:50.480 roughly the same thing. 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:53.080 Yeah, we're yeah, we're when when one of them is 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:55.239 not a sex pest. Yeah, I would love to see 0:02:55.240 --> 0:03:02.360 the statistic by occupation. Yes, anyway, we're back. We're continuing 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:05.280 our series on Aaron Schwartz, one of the people who 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:07.920 invented the Internet as we know it and where we 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:10.800 are right now. Aaron's in his early twenties, you know, 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:13.640 less than a decade into his career. He's been part 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:16.160 of the creation of RSS, he's been part of the 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:19.520 creation of the Open Library. He's one of the founders 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:23.600 of Reddit, and he's helped to create the Creative Commons. Right, 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:26.040 if that is what you can say about your life 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:28.919 at the end of forty years of full time work, 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:32.960 you have had a full career, right. Yeah, Aaron is 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:36.240 like eight or nine less than a decade in right, 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:40.400 Like just an astonishing CV you know if you want 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:41.520 to think of it that way. 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:42.200 Yeah. 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:45.920 The next thing he's going to get on after he bounces, 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:48.280 you know, from he goes to this thing he writes, 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:52.280 helps write the Gorilla Open Access Manifesto. Aaron returns to Cambridge, 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:54.800 mass and he gets involved with a new project, public 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:57.560 dot Resource dot org, which want to increase access to 0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:02.480 public legal documents. Documents are collectively owned by all of 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:05.360 us here in the old loss of status. You need us, right, 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:09.000 we own them all. None of them are property of 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:11.320 a court, of a lawyer or whatever. Right, if it's 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:14.160 introduced to court, it's everybody's. That is the way this 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:17.960 shit works, with very few exceptions. But that doesn't mean 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:20.880 you can just get access to it for free. Right Theoretically, 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:22.440 if you like go to a legal library or something, 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:23.479 you can get it. But like if you want to 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:26.680 get it from the government. The government provides access to 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:29.360 all this stuff that we all own via a system 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:33.680 called PACER, And as a journalist having used PACER, I 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:36.080 can tell you it sucks. Boiling dog shit. It is 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:39.080 a fucking horrible program. It's really badly coded. It's very 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:41.240 expensive to use if you're trying to get any meaningful 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:44.560 amount of information. And this is a problem because this 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:47.640 is access to stuff people need for their own legal cases. 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:51.440 Lawyers need to defend their clients, Journalists need to report 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:54.640 on things that involve the law. This is all critical 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:58.440 part of engaging with the legal system. And it's paywalled 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:02.600 effectively right and in fact, because of how expensive it is, 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:05.120 the government was profiting at this point by about one 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:08.200 hundred and fifty million a year, you know, off of 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:11.359 the fees they cause. It's not insignificant. And you know, 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:14.520 in addition to that, it's just a fucking nightmare to use. 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:18.359 So the plan that this organization, Aaron doesn't found it, 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:20.120 but he's like one of the first people on it. 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:23.160 The plan that the Public Dot Resource dood org has 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:26.280 is we want to get journalists, lawyers, researchers, people who 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:29.159 are using PACER and getting access to documents to send 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:31.920 them to us, which is perfectly legal. Right, You get 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:34.640 a document from PACER, belongs to all of us, send 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:36.720 it to us, and we will digitize it and put 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:39.560 it online. Right, and over time, we can collect as 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:41.520 much of this stuff as possible in a place that's 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:44.480 free to use and well coded and searchable so that 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:47.760 people can get better like, right, very good idea and 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:52.480 again absolutely one hundred percent, no no legal problems with 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:53.800 this plan, right. 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:55.360 Well, I mean it might piss people off. 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:58.080 Yeah, it might piss people off, right, because the government's 0:05:58.080 --> 0:05:59.840 got a big on this, But that doesn't mean you're 0:05:59.839 --> 0:06:02.520 doing doing anything wrong by having people do this right. 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:05.000 Around this time, though, the government has launched a project 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:08.440 to allow the idea was like, we want to increase 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:11.239 access to PACER files for free, and so a handful 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:15.159 of libraries basically had access to PACER without using money. 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:18.719 So you could go to those libraries, access documents, print 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:21.039 them out if you want it, right, or save them 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:25.120 on a hard drive or whatever. Right, Aaron writes some 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:29.440 code for this organization to allow him to automate this process. 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:32.320 So in very short order he has downloaded twenty percent 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:35.560 of the database of all American legal filings, right, a 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:38.280 lot of stuff. Again, not at all illegal. This is 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:41.520 everybody's property. There's nothing that makes this at all. But 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:44.880 the FBI gets on his ass, right because Pacer notices 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:48.480 one guy is doing an awful lot of downloading what's 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:51.200 going on? And the Fed starts serve. They send a 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:54.279 federal agent to his house to stalk him to see 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:57.200 if it's like his family's house. And he's eventually confronted 0:06:57.200 --> 0:06:59.720 by the FBI about the downloads, right, and they let 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:01.760 him know like, yeah, we have been following you. There's 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:05.240 a file on you. And again, Aaron has not done 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:07.359 anything wrong, He has not done anything that there is 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:10.320 any way this could be illegal, right, yea, what are 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:13.680 you thinking about? How possibly could you be committing a 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:18.200 crime by wanting to have more access to the law? Right? 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:22.200 What is what is the potential? But the Feds be 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:25.440 the Feds and they come after him, and you're like. 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:27.640 The money, you know, it doesn't matter about law. 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:30.240 Yeah, And I think they're also just like they don't 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:33.320 know what's going on, and that's just you know, if 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:36.400 you're the FBI, you handle every problem by sending a 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:40.440 federal agent out after somebody, Right, Aaron doesn't get any 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:42.920 trouble for this because he has again, he's done nothing wrong, 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:45.240 but this makes him very paranoid, right, and it makes 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:47.960 him very angry because this is his first interaction with 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:52.640 how fucking scary the feds are right that, like, they 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:55.800 were surveilling my home, they have a file on me 0:07:56.400 --> 0:08:00.280 because I wanted to increase access that people have to 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.240 the law. I wanted to give people more access to 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:06.160 the law. And the law came out like, yeah, this 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:10.000 fucks him up somewhat, right, not hard to understand. Why 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:10.960 now we. 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:12.960 Give you took a bunch of pictures of national parks 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:15.040 and we're like, here's a bunch of free pictures of 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:18.080 national parks. And then the federal government was like, how 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:20.920 dare you take? Why are you copies of the thing 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:21.600 that we all own? 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:26.120 Yeah? Yeah, So Aaron's on the government's radar now. And unfortunately, 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:28.360 the fact that he has not done anything wrong is 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:32.280 not a defense to the Feds continuing to look at you. Right, 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:34.760 And once you're on their radar, you tend to stay there. 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:37.280 And I'm going to quote from Rolling Stone again. A 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:41.319 year later, in September twenty ten, Schwartz connected a refurbished 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:45.600 Acer laptop to MIT's terminal in Building sixteen, a modernist 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:49.040 glass and concrete structure on the campus. Registered as a 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:51.400 guest on the system he had used most of his life, 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:54.800 he signed on to Jstore, an online library of academic 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:58.000 journals that universities pay yearly subscription fees of up to 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:01.120 tens of thousands to access. Using his script he had built. 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:04.200 Not unlike the pacer Crawler, Schwartz began to download an 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:07.160 extraordinary volume of articles. Over the course of the next 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:09.720 three months, he found ways to circumvent attempts to block 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:13.319 his connection, eventually hardwiring his laptop directly to the school 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:17.440 servers from a restricted utility closet. By January of twenty eleven, 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:20.720 he had downloaded nearly five million documents from Jaystore's database. 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:24.800 Hell yeah, now this is cool, and a reasonable person 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:28.720 might say, what's the big deal, right, Aaron is allowed 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:31.760 to access this stuff. He is a Harvard fellow at 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:35.480 this point, and MIT gives them access to their stuff, 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:37.800 So he is allowed to go to MIT, use their 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:40.880 Jaystore access, download as many files as he wants. That 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:44.720 is not a crime. It is a violation of policy 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:46.880 that I think the school probably could have chosen to, 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:49.280 like maybe press charge if they'd wanted to for going. 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:51.880 But even then, it's kind of doesn't break in. It 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:54.640 isn't like bust a lock. He just opens a closet 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:57.560 he's not supposed to be in and leaves a laptop 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:01.000 there hardwired in. It's we could a sketchy. I'm not 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:03.640 surprised that the school took an interest in this, Yeah, 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:05.840 but it's not. This is not kind of thing that 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:09.720 they because they didn't. They didn't think we need to 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:12.160 make sure that someone has free access. Doesn't download five 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:16.240 million files right, right, and it is depending on what 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:18.240 he had intended to do with those files, it could 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:22.800 be illegal. A lot of those files are public resources, 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:25.520 a copyright free. There's stuff that is old enough that 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:27.199 there's no copyright, and a lot of those files are 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:29.080 things he could have given out to whoever wanted. Not 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:30.560 all of them, though a lot of them are not. 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:34.640 If he had chosen to digitize all of that and 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:37.880 put it up for free, that would have been illegal. 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:39.600 Not saying it's wrong, I don't believe it is wrong, 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:40.559 but that would have been a crime. 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:41.160 Right. 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:43.800 But he doesn't do that. He doesn't ever get to 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:45.600 that point, and we don't know that that's what he 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:49.160 intended to do. This is a very important point. What 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:52.640 happens is that MIT notices what's going on that this 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:54.960 laptop has been put here, someone's in here, somebody's downloading 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:57.760 all these files. They put a hidden camera in the closet. 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:01.440 The camera captures Wore going in and changing out the 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:03.920 hard drive once it fills up to put a new 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:08.679 one in, and they contact law enforcement and he gets busted. 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:13.120 Right there's a grand jury thing that's formed, and they, 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:15.679 you know, the Feds present evidence as to kind of 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:18.560 like what is is you know, he's been doing and 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:21.680 he's going to end up getting indicted. And again we 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:24.320 don't know why Aaron one of those files. For one thing. 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:28.920 You know, if the Feds had really cared about if 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:32.240 the concern was actual criminality, they would have waited to 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:34.360 see if he was going to break the law. They 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:37.360 did not. They come after him before that can ever happen. 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:40.440 They are just trying to catch this kid because he's 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:43.720 on their radar, right Yeah, and they don't give a 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:46.640 shit if he's doing anything. And again, I don't morally 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:48.160 think it would have been wrong if he stole those, 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:50.240 but that is illegal, right, that is a crime. Right. 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:52.400 But if they if they waited until he broke the law, 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:53.679 then it would be the cat would be out of 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:56.440 the bag and the files at all, yeahploaded. And so 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:59.360 they wanted to stop him before he broke the law, 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:03.160 which should be it would be morally it's morally ang 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:05.560 the Feds to stop someone before they break the law 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:07.719 out of a set And. 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:09.880 Again, we don't know that he and I'll explain why 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:11.360 we don't know that he would have done that. I 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:13.800 think they didn't want to wait in case he wasn't 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:16.240 going to break the law, right I do. That's kind 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:18.760 of where I am. You know, I don't know, we're. 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:20.199 Talking totally, because they could have just had them been 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:21.800 like I want a database of this in case the 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:24.360 laws change around it, or yes, yeah. 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:25.800 And we'll talk about there's a couple other things he 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:27.920 could have been doing. What's important is that when he 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:30.880 gets in trouble for this, he has not actually broken 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:34.040 a law. Right, the Feds are going to argue he is. 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:37.839 He has not actually yet done anything that is definitely 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:41.840 criminal activity. And now there are some theories as to 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:45.440 why he might have wanted these files. By this point, 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:48.120 Aaron has again had another shift in his interests. He's 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:49.760 less interested. Actually at this point, a lot of his 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:52.319 rangers will say, he's not really that big into copyright stuff. 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:54.520 At this point. He's moved on. He writes some stuff 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:55.760 about this too, where he's like, that was you know, 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:57.840 an earlier point to me, That's not my focus right now. 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:01.280 He has gotten obsessed with having an impact in politics, 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:05.000 using his knowledge of code and technology to further progressive politics. Right. 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:07.720 That is what Aaron is into right now. One of 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:09.400 the things he is doing is actually, it's a lot 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:12.080 of it's kind of open source journalism. Right. He has 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:15.679 just recently finished a massive project where he basically built 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:19.040 a database of all of these publications of legal scholars, 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:22.079 and he used the algorithms he was crafting to comb 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:25.760 through them to find connections between legal scholars who have 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:28.880 been hired as consultants by various corporations and are receiving 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:32.120 money from those corporations, and then produce legal filings that 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:35.600 become part of legal theory that benefits those corporations. This 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:37.520 is the kind of thing you can only do when 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:39.600 you have a massive data set and you're able to 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:43.000 build connections between the data, right, And as a result 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:45.040 of this, he is able to prove that legal theory 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:48.280 is being crafted for pay by capitalists who are using 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:50.959 legal scholars in a way that is very fucked up 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:54.959 to push changes in the laws. Right, they are hiring 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:58.080 as people. These people then independently published stuff that is 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:00.640 helping these companies. Right, the kind of thing you have 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:03.040 to have a huge data set to show, Right, that 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:05.640 is something Aaron does. He proves this beyond a shadow 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:08.040 of a fucking doubt. Not that that surprises anybody who 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:11.360 listens to the show, but like, and that is a 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:14.760 potential use of the files he was using that is 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:15.640 in no way illegal. 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:19.560 That makes so much sense. That's this is kind of 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:21.360 mind blowing because I again, I only had the cliff 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:26.320 Notes version of Aaron's life, and like, so I had 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:30.040 the like and that you know, Dallo them to share 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:33.080 him or whatever, and I liked him then, But this 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.880 is like, yeah, yeah, it is a good point, and like, yeah. 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:39.400 That would have been heroic and illegal, which again you 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:41.600 and I I don't give a shit morally that it's illegal. 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:43.480 I think that would have been a perfectly ethical thing 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:46.280 to do. But there's a very good chance based on 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:48.520 what he was doing, he had absolutely no intent to 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:50.960 carry out. He was doing something else that's rad but 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:52.560 that was in no way illegal. 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:56.160 And he's also he's real smart, and he knows the 0:14:56.160 --> 0:15:00.400 Feds are on him, which does make it seem less 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:02.840 likely that he was specifically planning on breaking the law, 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:08.480 especially breaking a law that like because it took a 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:11.800 long time, right, he was like going and replacing the 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:15.640 hard drive and shit, right, and so he knew that 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:17.920 the Feds were on him. So if he was like, oh, 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:19.240 I got to do this and get them up and 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:21.360 it doesn't matter if I go down because I did it, 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:24.240 he would have done it a lot. He would have 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:27.760 done that a lot faster maybe, I think Jack here. 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:29.760 One of the things Quinn Norton will say also is 0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:31.560 that like, if he had been planning to do this 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:36.120 big illegal thing, I knew a bunch of hackers, there 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:38.680 were other ways to crack that data and get it 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:42.200 that would not have involved him personally doing it. Yeah, 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:44.800 this was a thing he knew the people get to 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:46.760 get involved with, right, there were there would have been 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:48.960 a way if that had been his plan. I do 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:51.000 think based on what I have read based on what 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:53.440 he was doing at this point, I think it's likelier 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:55.720 he had some sort of plan to analyze the data 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:57.400 and use it for a project, as opposed to he 0:15:57.440 --> 0:15:59.560 wanted to post it up. Right again, I would have 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:01.720 had no issue if he had of I just that's 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:04.600 what seems most likely to me based on what he 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:05.560 was doing. Right. 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:06.600 Oh, that's fascinating. 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:09.480 And as again as the New Yorker notes, this was 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:10.960 part of a pattern in his career, and I'm gonna 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:13.240 quote from that again. Five or six years ago, at 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:15.840 an Education in Democracy meetup, he asked if anyone was 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:17.720 going to be in Washington, d C. And could pick 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:19.880 up some files. He was compiling a report about the 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:23.640 relation between candidate's wealth and their electoral success. And while 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:26.920 successful candidate's financial disclosure records were available on the internet, 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:30.400 unsuccessful candidate's records, while public, were not online. If you 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:32.160 wanted to see them, you were supposed to make paper 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:34.640 copies in a library. But he won a digital file 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:37.800 so he could analyze the data. Alec Resnik was planning 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.520 to be in DC and volunteered for the task. Resnick 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:42.600 spent a couple of days in a library attempting to 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:45.560 steal the files in digital form, got caught light about 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:46.960 it and was held there for most of the night 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:49.520 by police. He wasn't put out by the experience. The 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:51.720 police had been very nice about it, he said. Schwartz 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:54.040 found the story endearing in hilarious, and he and Resnick 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:57.400 became close friends and so to the extent. Again, if 0:16:57.400 --> 0:16:59.440 that's what Aaron was doing, he probably thought, if I 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:02.680 get caught, that's the worst case scenario, right, you know, 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:05.159 they are a little sketched out. They take me to custody, 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:06.720 and then they find out I didn't have I wasn't 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:09.080 planning to do anything illegal with it, right. I have 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:10.439 a right to this data and I have a right 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:12.000 to do what I was doing with it. It was 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:13.679 just kind of sketchy the way I went about it 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:16.119 because I didn't want to ask, right, and that is 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:18.679 you know, you can say the safer thing to do 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:20.560 would have been to have approach to my tea and say, hey, 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:22.760 I want to use your jstore to download fucking ten 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:25.320 million files to do this big large data analysis. He 0:17:25.359 --> 0:17:27.120 had the right to do that. It probably would have worked. 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:28.840 But you know Aaron, right, Yeah. 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:31.680 He's a break things person, and he's a he has 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:34.080 a bit of that to him, right, Yeah, And he's 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:37.000 also kind of he is enough of a child of 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:39.840 privilege where he's not used to even probably with the 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:42.879 Feds after him. Maybe I'm I don't know him, and I'm. 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:46.080 I think sure, neither neither do I. That seems plausible 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:48.560 based on what we do know about him, right, Yeah, 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:50.960 So to do whatever work he had planned next, there's 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:52.960 a very good chance he was looking at this as like, 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:55.280 I need these massive data sets for some reason, and 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:57.639 I want to do an analysis on it, right, And 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:00.439 that is again within his rights. I think it's unlikely 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:02.159 he thought what he was doing was illegal, or that 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:03.399 if it was, it was the kind of thing might 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:05.720 get like yelled at about a little slap on the wrist. 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:05.960 Right. 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:07.879 He also doesn't think MIT is going to have an 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:09.720 issue with this, because MIT is where a lot of 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:12.359 hacker culture comes from. Right. The school has a history 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:14.800 of like people are allowed to kind of push some 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:18.880 boundaries because that's what makes MIT famous. Right, It's totally 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:22.840 people who push boundaries. Right, So it's not all going 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:24.919 to work out that way, And to talk about how 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:27.120 before we talk about how it worked out, let's talk 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:31.520 about some products that you can purchase using currency. 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:33.040 Which is like points. 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:34.720 It is like points. 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:36.320 It is like point. 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:39.560 The higher your point value, the more important you are. 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:42.280 That's exactly how I feel gold. 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:44.480 Points are worth more than paper. 0:18:45.520 --> 0:19:00.920 Yes, and we're back, so you know, uh uh yeah. 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:03.879 Aaron probably did not think this was going to be 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:05.960 an issue, certainly didn't think that if it was, the 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:07.920 school was going to have a serious problem with what 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:10.840 he'd done. But the response to what was at the 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.199